Someone has to say it... Navy SEALs?

P

Piece of Cake

Chieftain
Joined
Jan 9, 2005
Messages
12
Seriously. Navy SEALs as a unique unit? Give me a break.

To tell you the truth, when I heard that the developers had gone this way, I almost decided not to buy the game, believing that the game had been "dumbed down" and thrown to the first person shooter crowd. (But of course, I bought it anyway.)

Don't get me wrong. Like any patriotic, red-blooded American, I think special forces, including SEALs, are pretty cool. And no doubt they are very good at what they do. But what they do, and in particular what SEALs do, doesn't have any real application to Civ. Special forces, and particularly SEAL teams, aren't necessarily decisive instruments on a modern conventional battlefield. Their primary missions aren't to engage in direct actions. They don't engage in pitched battles (if they did, something must have gone wrong), and if they did, it certainly wouldn't be on anything larger than the company level. And they are never used in the strategic sense. So why did the developers include them?

Because the SOCOM crowd thinks they are cool. Sorry, but that's a sorry excuse for adding them as a unique unit, cool or not. As far as I am concerned, the Navy SEALs, badass or not, simply don't have the historical significance that many other military units or icons in American History have had. And the concept of a unique unit should be grounded in historical significance.

So now, as ridiculous as it sounds, I guess you get to assault and take whole cities defended by, say mechanized infantry (presumably on the divisional level), with a team of Navy SEALs. Now I don't insist on rigid adherence to reality, but this idea is so ridiculous that it borders on the comic.

Guess it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase GO NAVY - BEAT ARMY.
 
F-15 was a much better choice. High tech airpower is the defining feature of US military might.
I fully agree that Navy SEALS as a UU is silly. The scale is simply wrong, and there are better choices.
 
SOCOM?

Well, it's no weirder than entire Roman armies made up of praetorians, or the entire Russian cavalry being cossacks. Let's not speak about CivIII Carthage's heavy infantry all being Numidian mercenaries, when the Numidians that the Carthaginians actually fielded were light horsemen.

Oh, and how many seconds did it take to decide to name the Incan UU "Quechua"? Did someone put something in their coffee?
 
Praetorians are also pretty dumb. Legionary would have been fine.

I have more understanding for Cossack. They were a special unit which are uniquely associated with Russia, and also pretty numerous. Of course it is not 100% realistic but neither is the game. The trouble with including SEALs is that it is about 0.01% realistic.
 
Piece of Cake said:
Seriously. Navy SEALs as a unique unit? Give me a break.

To tell you the truth, when I heard that the developers had gone this way, I almost decided not to buy the game, believing that the game had been "dumbed down" and thrown to the first person shooter crowd. (But of course, I bought it anyway.)

Don't get me wrong. Like any patriotic, red-blooded American, I think special forces, including SEALs, are pretty cool. And no doubt they are very good at what they do. But what they do, and in particular what SEALs do, doesn't have any real application to Civ. Special forces, and particularly SEAL teams, aren't necessarily decisive instruments on a modern conventional battlefield. Their primary missions aren't to engage in direct actions. They don't engage in pitched battles (if they did, something must have gone wrong), and if they did, it certainly wouldn't be on anything larger than the company level. And they are never used in the strategic sense. So why did the developers include them?

Because the SOCOM crowd thinks they are cool. Sorry, but that's a sorry excuse for adding them as a unique unit, cool or not. As far as I am concerned, the Navy SEALs, badass or not, simply don't have the historical significance that many other military units or icons in American History have had. And the concept of a unique unit should be grounded in historical significance.

So now, as ridiculous as it sounds, I guess you get to assault and take whole cities defended by, say mechanized infantry (presumably on the divisional level), with a team of Navy SEALs. Now I don't insist on rigid adherence to reality, but this idea is so ridiculous that it borders on the comic.

Guess it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase GO NAVY - BEAT ARMY.
Click to expand...

Well the fact is the Navy SEALs are replacing the Marines, and the fact is that the Marines are also not something you are going to use in any truly large scale warfare, (They will be part of it.. but only a part, tip of the spear and all that)

In the tech tree, the Marines are a specialized unit, a bit worse than Mech Infantry in overall combat with a few special bonuses.

If you are Still having trouble, imagine the Navy Seal unit as a group of Marines Assisted by Navy SEALs in their overall combat. (the unit is called Navy SEALs because it contains them not because they are all Navy SEALs)
 
I can see your point. The SEALS simply do not operate at the opeational level of the other units in the game. I suspect that they wanted to give every country access to Marines, and then give the Americans an amphibious unit that was just a little better as a UU. As a Navy man, I would say that the SEALS fit that bill admirably.

But, as a Navy man, I have to say that it brings out a problem that CivIII had and that seems to continue on the CivIV. Control of the seas has been a factor of world domination since the Phoenicians. And control of the air has become just as important as armed aircradt became more sophisticated through the last century.
However, both are given subserviant roles in the Civ seroes. Even in the "Age of Discovery" scenario in C3C (one of my favorites, by the way), naval power served mostly as transportation, and ship battles were unusual.

If you check through the list of the Civ Iv UUs, you will see that they are all ground units. The naval and air UUs of CivIII, weak as they were, are gone. To me, this is an admission by the designers that Ground always trumps Air and Navy in the Civ series.
 
The Last Conformist said:
Well, it's no weirder than entire Roman armies made up of praetorians, or the entire Russian cavalry being cossacks. Let's not speak about CivIII Carthage's heavy infantry all being Numidian mercenaries, when the Numidians that the Carthaginians actually fielded were light horsemen.
Click to expand...

I can even accept the lack of unit scale when it comes to ancient-era units, because let's face it, sometimes the unique unit is more about iconography than realism. But by the time we get to the gunpowder (rifleman) era, and the populations of the world's nations are on a proportional scale to support them, I presume that most military units represent the regimental level at the very smallest. Certainly by the modern (WWII) era, the Civ units represent divisions.

But SEAL teams are just that, teams, i.e., they typically operate on the platoon level. And now you have SEALs engaging in full-scale assaults against infantry or armored divisions.
 
A slightly more valid grumble would be that the SEALs are hardly unique, wouldn't it? After all, their initial formation and training was based on the SAS - As I understand from reading Andy McNabb (and other ex-SAS-turned-authors). I think a good US unique unit would be some kind of high tech modern infantry replacement. Isn't there a US regiment that is always the first to get all the new high tech stuff? I seem to remember hearing about them on the news just after the end of the latest scrap in Iraq, but I forget who it was...my mind wants to say 10th Mountain...or 4th something? Sorry, am not an American. Would actually quite like to know...if anyone knows what I'm on about? Ramble, ramble.

Anyway, SEALs themselves are unique as an outfit, sure, but as a concept (that concept being special forces), they're not. They weren't even the first.

Note: Am not criticising a) Civ, b) The Seals, so no one jump on me now, eh? :goodjob:
 
Krikkitone said:
Well the fact is the Navy SEALs are replacing the Marines, and the fact is that the Marines are also not something you are going to use in any truly large scale warfare, (They will be part of it.. but only a part, tip of the spear and all that)

In the tech tree, the Marines are a specialized unit, a bit worse than Mech Infantry in overall combat with a few special bonuses.

If you are Still having trouble, imagine the Navy Seal unit as a group of Marines Assisted by Navy SEALs in their overall combat. (the unit is called Navy SEALs because it contains them not because they are all Navy SEALs)
Click to expand...

I'd even accept Marines as the American UU. At least they operate on the divisional level. Putting it in scale, 70,000 Marines took part in the assault on Iwo Jima in 1945. Historically speaking, I'd say marines as a unit earned their way into Civ.
 
You got pissed at Civ 4 because there are Navy SEALs? I looked up the Praetorians, and they were supposed to be body guards. I don't recall the ancient Chinese famous for crossbows.
To complaint that SEALs can be built and used in a strategic level is like complaining about the Praetorians and probably a lot of other UUs and even standard units. There are IMO other, more interesting gameplay arguments than this.
 
calyth said:
You got pissed at Civ 4 because there are Navy SEALs? I looked up the Praetorians, and they were supposed to be body guards. I don't recall the ancient Chinese famous for crossbows.
To complaint that SEALs can be built and used in a strategic level is like complaining about the Praetorians and probably a lot of other UUs and even standard units. There are IMO other, more interesting gameplay arguments than this.
Click to expand...

First, if you had to look it up, it probably didn't matter to you.

Second, if this is uninteresting discussion, then you don't have to participate. There are about 1,000 other threads re gameplay issues.
 
The historical bollocks of Civ4 is laughable.

Honestly - im no history major but it only takes a few seconds to find out what Praetorians were (Bodyguard to the Emperor). Navy Seals is also silly.

I'd much prefer an American UU to be the Minute Man, F-15, Marine, or something like that rather than A Navy Seal team. Talk about ruining the suspension of disbelief.

It's the 'gee whiz' factor that Civ4 is obviously aiming for. Watch out Civ5 to be on Xbox.
 
DaveDash said:
It's the 'gee whiz' factor that Civ4 is obviously aiming for. Watch out Civ5 to be on Xbox.
Click to expand...

This is my point exactly. I play Civ (almost exclusively these days) mostly because I enjoy manipulating history, and not just because the units are cool. I also enjoy the strategic scale of it.

As for the American UU, I suggested in another thread that it should be the Nimitz carrier. Think about it - what other symbol is as powerful a projection of American military power in the modern (superpower) era? And historically relevant.
 
The Nimitz Class has been suggested repeatedly since UUs were introduced in CivIII. But they apparently decided to have no naval (or aerial) UUs this time round - not very surprising, since everyone complained about the uselessness of such in CivIII.
 
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